Chinese Hackers Penetrate Key U.S. Government Networks

Hackers linked to the Chinese government targeted dozens of major United States organizations, including the Federal Reserve, the Department of Justice, the Department of Energy, nasa, the Senate, as well as power companies, defense contractors and election agencies, the fbi said in an affidavit unsealed on August 26.

The sophisticated hacking outfit, known as qtfy, used a platform called QScan to scour the Internet for vulnerable devices. The platform was equipped with more than 200 methods for exploiting weaknesses in software, and it successfully infected thousands of routers, cameras and other pieces of Internet-connected equipment. Once inside these devices, the hackers could access sensitive files and steal crucial information.

The hackers also used QTRouter to route their malicious activity through Internet devices close to the targets’ networks. This made the attacks appear to be ordinary local Internet traffic, making it harder for investigators to trace them back to China.

Gabrielle Hempel, a cybersecurity strategist at Exabeam, explained to Infosecurity Magazine: “They have built an ecosystem designed to make malicious activity look geographically and operationally ordinary.”

But make no mistake. The attacks originated in China and were financed by the Chinese Communist Party.

The fbi affidavit notes that for this years-long campaign, qtfy worked through a China-based company that sold hacking services to both the Chinese military and China’s Ministry of State Security. It also notes that former Chinese military personnel were among qtfy’s ranks and drew on their military connections to win contracts and subcontracts that funded the cyberattacks.

“qtfy is another example of how China’s cyber ecosystem has blurred the line between commercial cybersecurity and state-sponsored operations,” Aaron Shraberg, a senior intelligence specialist with the Flashpoint cybersecurity firm, told Fox News Digital: “The commercialization of that ecosystem has helped turn capabilities that once relied on bespoke tradecraft into tools and services that can be developed, reused and deployed at scale.”

The operation was extraordinarily aggressive, and its scale was staggering.

On just one day in 2024, QScan carried out more than 2 million attempts to find and exploit weaknesses on Internet-connected systems. Many of the attempts failed, but the sheer volume means that even a fraction of successful intrusions represented a serious threat.

Nick Tausek, a cyberthreat expert at the security firm Swimlane, called particular attention to the targets related to U.S. defense. “Military and defense-linked networks are about as sensitive as targets get,” he said. “They can expose operational plans, contractor relationships, technical capabilities and access paths into systems tied directly to national security. Even limited access can give an adversary intelligence that’s useful far beyond the organization initially breached.”

On several occasions, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry has examined the dangers of America’s—particularly the U.S. military’s—reliance on computer systems that are susceptible to enemy sabotage. In a January 1995 Trumpet article, he quoted analyst Joseph de Courcy, who called this “the Western world’s Achilles’ heel”—a reference to the nearly invincible figure in Greek mythology who was vulnerable to injury only on his heels.

“America is the greatest superpower this world has ever known,” Mr. Flurry wrote. “But we have a very vulnerable point in our military—our own Achilles’ heel.” This vulnerable area “is so dangerous that I am amazed it hasn’t received more publicity” (ibid).

Mr. Flurry said de Courcy’s warning about this vulnerability brought to mind a Bible prophecy in Ezekiel 7. The chapter’s first three verses show that God is addressing “the land of Israel” in the time of “the end,” which mainly means the U.S. and Britain in our modern era. (You can understand this by studying our free book The United States and Britain in Prophecy.)

Ezekiel describes a time in the future when God will chastise these countries for their “abominations” and hatred of His law and authority (verse 8). Verse 14 details one element of that chastisement: “They have blown the trumpet, even to make all ready; but none goeth to the battle: for my wrath is upon all the multitude thereof.”

Mr. Flurry called this an “alarming” scripture. He explained that it concerns a future time when American military technology will have been hacked by enemies. “It seems everybody is expecting our people to go into battle, but the greatest tragedy imaginable occurs!” Mr. Flurry wrote. “Nobody goes to battle—even though the trumpet is blown! Will it be because of a computer terrorist?”

Isaiah 59 provides additional details about the same future time of conflict and confusion. In verses 9 and 10, the peoples of the U.S. and Britain are shown to be stripped of vision: “[W]e wait for light, but behold obscurity; [we wait] for brightness, but we walk in darkness. We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men.”

This passage is true in a spiritual way: America and Britain are already groping around in spiritual darkness and blindness. But this could also have a physical fulfillment. If computer networks of crucial government institutions and agencies were infiltrated by hackers from China and other hostile nations, the computer-dependent populations would be in the dark. America’s military leaders would be left to fight blind.

In the June 1999 Trumpet issue, Mr. Flurry again examined the U.S. military’s perilous vulnerability to cyberattacks in the context of Bible prophecy. He wrote: “We could lose the next war before we even begin ….”

To understand more about America’s dangerous cyber vulnerability and to see the hopeful message that is tied intimately to these developments, read “China Hacks America—and ‘None Goes to Battle.’”